Northern Ireland Bans British Global Warming Ads

Northern Ireland's environment minister, Sammy Wilson, announced Monday he has banned British government TV ads on climate change and denounced their energy-saving message as “insidious propaganda.” Wilson said the Act on CO2 ads were “giving people the impression that by turning off the standby light on their TV, they could save the world from melting glaciers and being submerged in 40 feet of water.”

The British government in London funds the Act on CO2 campaign encouraging citizens to reduce their use of electricity and fossil fuels. Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, but Northern Ireland has autonomy in many areas. According to Minister Wilson, the ads, which have been running on British television stations including in Northern Ireland over the past year, are peddling “patent nonsense.” Countering that global weather patterns are naturally cooling, not warming — and humanity should invest in coping with God-driven climate change, not trying to slow down a man-made problem.

Mr Wilson does not doubt that we are experiencing climate change, but supports the view that such change has been a cyclical feature of Earth's climate throughout history. He therefore refuses to spend billions of pounds of tax-payers’ hard-earned money on reducing emissions, expanding regulation, strangling businesses and restricting economic freedom in a vain attempt to stop climate change: “Resources should be used to adapt to the consequences of climate change, rather than King Canute-style vainly trying to stop it,” he said.

This is just the latest sign that the theory of global warming is facing growing backlash among scientists, politicians and the general public. I mentioned in an earlier post about the 650 climate scientists from around the world who protested the IPCC and its climate change theories. Is the tide turning on the so called “consensus” that has been widely cited as a reason to blindly believe the hooey being handed down by the likes of Al Gore and James Hansen? Let's hope so.

Those experienced with the scientific method—the scholarly method of evaluating alternative hypotheses—well understand that accepted “consensus” views are often overturned by subsequent generations armed with better data. Thomas Kuhn wrote in his classic book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, that any hypothesis, no matter how widely accepted, remains only a tentative model of reality. All theories are subject to being replaced by better ones as more evidence comes in.

This understanding of the true nature of science is coming as a shock to members of the green movement and the media, who accept global warming as a tenent of faith. As the truth about climate change slowly filters out to the public, it is becoming harder and harder for the global warming faithful to stick to the party line. The problem with global warming is that it distorts so many other government policies and programs. For example, with cold weather continuing to lash Europe, EU nations are rapidly realizing that their only real alternative to coal and oil is nuclear energy—causing even more green confusion.

Another setback for environmentalists everywhere is over biofuels: ethanol and biodiesel. The EU is fighting a backlash over biofuel production which is leading to skyrocketing food prices. Though the EU has vowed to stick to its climate change goals, the public is increasingly restive over the prospect of world hunger and poverty increase exponentially. The World Bank said in a 2008 report that biofuel production has pushed up feedstock prices and was affecting food prices world wide. The head of Nestle corporation said, “to grant enormous subsidies for biofuel production is morally unacceptable and irresponsible.” As we put it in The Resilient Earth, “Do we really want cars competing with people for food?”

Perhaps the most insidious part of the global warming scam is the way it give cover to other bogus programs and hustles. Biofuels, carbon sequestration, and clean coal are are right up there with “the check is in the mail” and “I'm from the government and I'm here to help” as the greatest lies of our time. Though I have quoted him before, the words of Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh (a former IPCC member) regarding global warming bear repeating: “[it is the] worst scientific scandal in the history…When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists.”

I respectfully suggest that you are the victim of the propaganda from the Petroleum Institute which seeks to derail any effort to free the U.S. from dependence upon petroleum as has been done in Brazil. Are you aware that Prohibition served to end fuel alcohol production which was far more common than Rockefeller's gasoline at the time. Even small towns had their own distilleries. Model Ts would run on either.

I think you are deceived if you believe corn prices rose because of ethanol production. Very little corn goes to human consumption. Almost all of it goes to animal feed. If you use corn to produce ethanol you do not lose the corn. You simply remove the sugar and the starch. The result is a more healthful animal feed in the form of "distillers dried grain". As you may be aware unprocessed corn will eventually kill cattle.

We could very nearly replace gasoline for transportation by converting yard waste, cellulosic material, into ethanol. My local land fill agency makes compost out of it. Acres and acres of it. They could have made alcohol and tapped the methane from the already buried waste to power the still. They can still make their compost out of what is left. They could pay us to pick up our trash!

There are also other excellent side effects for family farms and rural communities.

I encourage you to rethink this. An excellent source is David Blume's "Alcohol Can Be A Gas" which is available at his website by the same name.

You are obviously a victim of propaganda from the farm lobby, big agri-business and the biofuel industry. Reports from the EPA, California's CARB and the EU's joint Research Council clearly state that biofuels pollute more than the fossil fuels they are supposed to replace. When the water use of biofuel feedstock crops is analyzed, the water footprint (WF) ranges from 1,400 to an astounding 20,000 gallons of water for each gallon of biofuel produced. Given the incipient world water shortage, pursuing biofuels is nothing short of insane. For more information see: